Kristy Minor is an environmental engineering graduate working in Ghana as part of an Engineers Without Borders initiative. Currently working with Community Driven Initiatives for Food Security (CIFS) she is co-ordinating projects and helping to build the capacity of local government and its sub-structures. Kristy will continue to share her experiences and challenges on Red Canary

If I think back to my grade school days in Canada, I can remember being walked to school by my mom or older school kids, I remember going to school and feeling like I wanted to know everything, I remember parent teacher meetings and report cards. I remember playing sports, recess and kissing boys behind the playground. I remember going home at night and doing homework, I remember being rewarded by my teachers, parents and grandparents, and I remember that when I grew up I wanted to be a Teacher, an Architect, an Engineer.

In Ghana, I see something different. Children here are motivated to learn like all children: they are curious and soak up information like little sponges. The only problem is, who are they soaking it in from?

There is a huge lack of qualified teachers in Ghana, especially in the Northern Region. From the statistics I have seen from Ghana Education Services in some areas more than 50% of the teachers employed are not “qualified”. This means someone with a Grade school or high school education is teaching levels they have only just past.

Why are there not enough teachers? There are school facilities (some of them however are not proper structures, and can even be open air schools, gathering under the shade of a large tree). There are parent teacher meetings but only at some schools.

But here is the bigger problem – Parents are not motivated to send their children to school!

In Ghana, children are often used for a number of income generating activities—like selling bananas on the street, to working on their farm, to leading around the blind begging for small change. If that has not held the child back, and they are in school, they could very well be doing these activities at night, weekends and even pulled out of school during certain seasons.

If a child is in school, there is still lack of motivation or involvement of the parents in studying and homework. These also entering a bigger cycle, because some parents are not literate, do not understand English and truly cannot give in that way.

Also because of religious beliefs within the Muslim community, there is much more pressure for their children to attend Islamic school, as it is believed that it is more important to learn Arabic than to study English, Math and Agriculture. If they pass all these obstacles, some are left with a huge hurdle.

English is the official language of Ghana, but there are many many different tribes in Ghana, each with their own unique language. The majority of children will grow up with their tribe language as their first language.

This makes learning extremely challenging and can be discouraging. Imagine learning in English at school, speaking Dagbani at home and than going to Arabic classes at night. Did I mention you also have to take a local language class at school and in addition French?

If you are a girl child, you are even less likely to make it to school. If you do, your chances of making it into Senior Secondary (like high school) are pretty slim. Girls here are married off before they even reach this age. Girls in Junior School are already involved in relationships and have older boyfriends (men). The culture of dating much younger woman has definitely set back females in gaining a proper education.

For me, part of growing up was figuring out what I wanted to be and where I wanted to go, and in large part I am still asking myself that.

Here, it seems, that part is missing. It’s part of a bigger cycle, which is unemployment, especially among the youth. If you cannot see where you want to go, why are you motivated to do it? If you know that at the end of the day you will get whatever you can, why would you set yourself up to fail in an impossible situation.

My spirits went to an all time low when I asked my best friend here, a boy of 15 years old, what he wanted to do when he grew up.

He said “I don’t know, I will let my brother fill that part out’’.

And the cycle continues.